New Wave Film Evaluation

For my contextual studies final piece i wanted to create a short piece that highlighted the technical aspects that made the new wave moment so inspirational. focusing on camera techniques and editing rather than narrative and characters. It was my intention to accurately portray these techniques within a film of my creation, and explore how they all affect the film in there own way.

The film opens with a static close up of an individual lighting a cigarette, i wanted the very first shot of my film to be a perfect representation of the New Wave, and the subtlest most stylistic option for me atleast was to have this smoking shot, in essentially every New Wave film we see characters drenched in cigarette smoke, most notably Godard's film "Breathless", in which the protagonist is constantly smoking, almost to comical effect. by incorporating this i hoped t set the tone of the film instantly, a love letter to the French New Wave.
After this i incorporated rapid successive jump cuts of the subject driving her car, in the context of the New Wave, jump cuts were not only used to represent the passing of time, but also as a tool to criticise the mainstream, jump cuts were used throughout conversations and scenes that normaly would never feature jump cuts. for my film i saw rapid jumpiest in unusual scenes as a ,method of not only demonstration and representing time, but also as a tool to to connect the audience to the protagonist, the passage of time not only shows the audience the degradation of the protagonist, but emotionally connects the two due to said degradation.

During this scene i spliced shots of the road the individual drove on in-between the footage of her driving, this was done to give a sense of location to the film, and to brake up the repetition of the film. showing footage of the location we filmed in also gives us the added benefit of showing the audience the environment the protagonist lives in, giving a more in depth look at the protagonist without resorting to hefty exposition. This technique also stems from the French New Wave, the camera would almost linger on shots of the streets of Paris highlighting the environment the people live in, and how they have essentially became a product of said environment.

the next shot is of my subject walking through a car park, just like the previous scene i use jump cuts throughout the scene, to spend up the pace of the film and to further represent the passage of time. the camera has jagged movements never resting still for a moment. i chose to use a handheld camera rather than one on a steady rig or a dolly as it gives the audience the impression that they are simply a fly on the wall, an outside observer looking into the intimate and personal world of the subject. This is similar to how cameras were used in the New Wave. due to the cheapness and guerrilla filmmaking, expensive cameras used in hollywood films were unavailable yo the filmmakers of the new wave, so cheaper handheld cameras were used in there absence. There use of which provides a similar emotional response as to my film.

The following shot is a static close of the subjects face as she walks around a shopping centre, the camera in this scene was suspended on a make shift dolly which she than proceed to push around the centre. I placed the camera this way to provide he audience with an unflinching view of the subject, as a method of expanding on the emotional connection between subject and audience. Similarly to the previous scene, the makeshift dolly is a further representation to guerrilla film making during the New Wave, limited budget meant that professional was almost impossible to come by, the Filmmakers would resort to makeshift tripods, dolly' and other equipment currently used today. the make shift dolly i used for this shot was again another way for me to use techniques used in the New Wave.

If i were to re-shoot or re-do this piece there are several changes and corrections that i would like to make, due to time restrictions i wasn't able to create a more fleshed out narrative, whilst i like the quaintness and intimate nature of my final piece, i feel that creating a story with motifs and dialogue using themes present throughout all New Wave films would have been a better choice in order to capture the essence of the New Wave.
another aspect that bothers is me is that some shots of the individual in the shopping centre are slightly out of focus, there is no explanation for why this is, i simply made a mistake with the focusing, if i had the choice i would go back and reshoot these scenes.
During some of the car journey scenes, we can see grain throughout the frame, due to filming at night i had to increase the ISO to make up for the loss of light, doing so resulted in heavy grain. if i were to reshoot i would have a light source in the car itself, providing more light for the lens meaning that i wouldn't have to increase the iso to make up for the loss of quality.

In conclusion i am happy with my final piece, i feel that it not only accuratly represents the essence of the New Wave, but also highlights and recreates environments and techniques that made the New Wave so.